Craig Design Group Website

This is a simple website for a Chattanooga based landscape architect that focuses on beautiful portfolio slideshows. We’ve also added Twitter and Facebook integration to keep fans and customers updated on the latest projects.

Add to this the need for regular blogging (on your site and other platforms) and email updates, and the management of all this online communication becomes daunting. What if there were a way to integrate all of your modes of online presence, so you’d only have to post once to update all of the different platforms? Well, the short answer is: there is.

I’ve been working with a local organic farm to update their online presence, and we’ve come up with a very simple implementation of WordPress that cross-posts to Facebook Pages and Twitter. Every blog post automatically creates an entry with linkback on Facebook Pages, and an accompanying Tweet with linkback. It has been a great way to keep the farm’s audience informed and engaged.

Additionally, we’ve added bookmarking links for all of the major social media platforms and favorites keepers, thus adding to the potential for viral sharing.

I’m also working on a mailing list that further integrates with WordPress, and it’s looking very promising. There is a new WordPress mailing list plugin that allows opt-in or manually entered mailing list clients to manage automated subscriptions to blog and page updates, and allows administrators to manage multiple mailing lists, and send newsletters and alerts. It integrates with the website seamlessly and also has WYSIWYG editing.

Sequatchie Cove Farm website

This site was produced in tandem with Widgets & Stone, a Chattanooga design firm. We’re members of Sequatchie Cove Farm’s Community Shared Agriculture program, so we are very familiar with the quality of the eggs, dairy, meat and produce coming out of the clean and fertile Sequatchie Valley.

(Will Work for Food!)

• WordPress Content Management System allows the farmers to easily add their opinions, information and images
• Automated updates to Facebook Pages, with linkback
• Automatic Twitter tweets for new posts, with linkback
• Social Media bookmarking
• SlideShowPro gives the site a slick Flash-based Image Management System so the site can feature seasonal images.
• MailMan manages a plethora of mailing lists for the weekly emails that keep the farmers connected to the communities and individuals they serve

I just loaded and activated Scissors, so I’m going to try it out to see how it works…

this image is rotated

this image is resized

this image is cropped

Well, it looks like it works just fine! Another plugin that’s just become a necessity for client sites!

Chattanooga Nature Center website

Here’s a new site for Chattanooga Nature Center, our award-winning regional environmental education and animal rehabilitation facility.

• News, newsletter are updated frequently by Nature Center staff, using the WordPress Content Management System
• SlideShowPro with videos, audio backgrounds and frequently updated rotating slideshows
• Google Analytics to track page views, form submissions, pdf and file downloads
• Online donations and membership signup form, with payments handled by PayPal

Sequatchie Valley Institute website

I visited Sequatchie Valley Institute years ago with my children, and made a long-term goal to some day live and work with the folks I met there. We use the web extensively to communicate with our members, the public, and the media.

• SlideShowPro Director provides an engaging and easily-updated frontpage show, and a gallery of current and past events
• Event Calendar manages our online calendar
• Registration forms and contact forms for events and communication, routed to the proper folks
• MailMan takes care of our e-mail blasts
• Vanilla forum helps the board of directors sort out our business

Austria Adventure Week website

I worked with Bike Tours Direct to create this sub-site to promote their Austria Adventure Week package, a 2-week trip catering to mountain bikers and trail runners. We picked an open source WordPress template and made some minor tweaks to personalize it for the site by replacing a few images and adding navigation tabs.
 

• Easy to use WYSIWYG editor allows administrators to quickly make edits, add pages or images, etc.
• Comment feature for visitors to ask questions and get quick answers
• SEO — Search Engine Optimization for automated submission to Google, MS Network, and Yahoo; automated SEO-friendly titles, URLs and descriptions
• Custom contextual navigation system

Zero Sum Website

This is a project for Create Here, a Chattanooga think tank nonprofit that connects entrepreneurs and artists with creative communicators to promote sustainable, creative initiatives and showcases. Zero Sum is an exhibit that examines the role of games in contemporary culture and the impact they have on our social experience, psyche, morality and approach to critical thinking.

• Online forms for artistic submissions
• Database to collect and organize submissions, including file uploads
• Search Engine Optimization, sitemaps, Google Analytics to provide info about traffic and visitors